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submitted 18 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 minutes ago

Personally, I like not needing to dedicate the space to a printer. The rare times I need to print something, I'll just go to a store with a print shop like staples. Over the last 8 years, I've spent less than $10 on all of my printing needs, which is still way cheaper than even the most cost-effective, least-HP printer out there.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 2 hours ago

Xennial here, get a Brother laser printer if you can. The "starter toner" lasted me for like 4 years so far and is only now getting low. I can't imagine going back to an inkjet that would always dry up since I used infrequently, but I still needed it.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 33 minutes ago

A second vote for brother lasers.

I upgraded my old printer about 6 months ago. Laser is far superior, and no longer particularly expensive. I also discovered they have solved the photo printing quality issue at some point (laser's only real weakness). I ran off a photo and it came out near/at inkjet quality.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 44 minutes ago

Bonus is you can buy third party refilled toner in bundles for like $15 for 3. I bought some a couple of years ago and I still haven't burned through the first replacement

[-] [email protected] 1 points 25 minutes ago

There have been reports that Brother has finally started being evil about third-party toner with new firmwares.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 48 minutes ago

Yep, finally got rid of my Epson BJ with a Brother b/w laser and it’s fantastic. A little louder but it functions like it should instead of complaining about low Magenta.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Same, 3 years running, printing lots of shit for my own company and just now got a "low toner" warning which I'm ignoring for the last 2 or so months. Buying an inkjet is the biggest scam there is, you pay more in the ink and broken printers than you ever would for a laser.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 58 minutes ago

Who the hell can figure out how to make a printer work

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

Brother laser gang here -- highly recommend. I print a handful of things every year and it hasn't let me down. Still rocking the original toner and I bought it in 2021.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago

This is me. Now that I work from home, if I need to print something (maybe 3 times per year), I use a mailing service that will print a pdf and send it to my place. It cost 2€ per document, takes 2-3 days to arrive, but it is still cheaper and less painful than buying a printer.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 59 minutes ago

Why not use the local library? They often offer print services

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

Xennial here. I bought a nice lightly used office printer/copier for cheap off ebay a few years back for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop. It saw a lot of use while I was an assistant leader, but nowadays I only use it to print Pathfinder character sheets and maps. I definitely don’t use it enough to justify it, but as long as I have it I may as well keep it.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

My local library has been getting refurbished for a couple of months.

It's really thrown off my ability to do paperwork, as they were the only people around with a working printer.

I actually had to fix the printer at work. Horrible stuff.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 20 minutes ago

Ditto on libraries. Mine does AWESOME large format printing for next to nothing. I got 5 different sewing patterns printed, which ended up being 20 or so pages of 48"x48" sheets in color and it cost about $30. Priced it at fedex and it was running well over $100 (I think closer to 200 or 300 but I didn't pay much attention after seeing how much it was at the libraries.

I have a small Canon b/w laserjet at home which has worked well for small projects but the libraries have been a huge help for anything outside standard letter size print jobs.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago

Hey! I use my local library too! 😂

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

I can't remember the last time I actually had to print something, it's either digital or you get sent whatever needs to be on paper.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

I don't understand why laser printers aren't more affordable. way back in 2010 I bought a full colour Samsung laser printer for $200. Nowadays you can't find a full color printer for under $500.00

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

My Brother color printer was like $350 and they are probably the only OEM I'd even recommend.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

I just go to a print/copy store. Pay up, be done with it.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I have to use a printer for my work-from-home job. If you just buy a Brother laserjet printer and avoid other brands and inkjets, it's way more affordable. It costs more up front, but they're reliable and don't need to be replaced every year. My printer cost $250 and I've had it for at least five years at this point.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I have a cheapass printer that is probably listening to me. It has little ink (i barely used it and the black ink is at 50%) i use the scanner feature more often.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago

Home printers suck, too much gadgetry and bs involved. Industrial printers are far better at being plug and play. I dont need apps or anything at all.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 8 hours ago

The best investment of my life was buying an Epson LQ500 back in... I don't know... '95 perhaps? All this years, and even after months or even years without use it will happily awake from its slumber to once again scream and punch dots on to its never ending but ancient supply of fanfold paper

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

But where do you get new ribbons? Or can you re-ink them?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

For one, they are still sold new for a surprising low amount of money (e.g.: https://www.bueromarkt-ag.de/farbband_kmp_0633_0501_fuer_epson,vt-farbbaender_und_-rollen,vh-epson,vg-lq_500,p-06330501.html) but re-inking them using just rubber stamp ink is also a possibility.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago

HP doesn't even sell the ink for my (relatively new) printer where I live.
Its on their U.S site, but I can't order from that since it asks for a ZIP code.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Most BS thing I had to deal with HP ink was region-locked ink. If you buy the European version of the US ink (it’s literally the exact same thing with a different label) it will refuse to work unless you change the region of your printer. Good luck going through HP support

[-] [email protected] 1 points 14 minutes ago

What the actual fuck

[-] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I've had an operational printer in the household since around the year 2000, and I cannot fathom not having access to one. I would be a virtual headless chicken running around wailing about gutenburg or something.

Switching from Ink to Laser printers was a game changer as far as maintenance and costs (you can pick up a reconditioned laser printer from the early 2000's from a company that specializes in refurbing them and rock it for decades).

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[-] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Bought a Canon laser printer a decade ago. Only needed a new set of toner and a bunch of paper obviously. Standard power cord, standard USB 1.x cable. Still works in Windows 11. I think I got it working in Linux at some point, but I don't know if it does nowadays, because I probably don't have the mental fortitude to touch CUPS again in this lifetime. (People keep saying audio is a nightmare to set up in Linux. Ohh you clearly haven't tried to set up a printer or you would not be complaining)

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Strangely, this has never been the case for me (printers, not audio which obviously has sucked in the past). Also if you get a printer that is networked, it generally just works these days, better than my Windows experience.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

(People keep saying audio is a nightmare to set up in Linux. Ohh you clearly haven’t tried to set up a printer or you would not be complaining)

My single worst experience with Linux was getting audio to work with an ISA Plug 'n' Play Sound Blaster card back in the late 90s. Eventually I got it to work, but after installing the card I had to dig through documentation and forums to figure out that in addition to audio drivers I needed to install a package for ISA PnP cards, run a tool that came with that to generate a config file, realize that config file contained every hypothetical configuration my card could potentially have all commented out, find and uncomment the actual configuration I wanted the card to use and then restart the isapnp driver. All of that to get basic functionality. For Windows, I literally just installed the card and it worked with basic functionality out of the box, with an option to go to their website and download a driver for some extra functionality specific to that card.

That...soured me on the idea of desktop Linux for several years.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Linux is fine for printers. As long as you don't want to print more than one copy. But even then you just start multiple print jobs. Unless you need a lot of copies. Then Windows or Mac is probably easier.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

I've genuinely never had a better printing experience than on Linux. Across multiple distros. just press ctrl+p, printer is already detected, press ok, done. What am I doing wrong?

[-] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago

Who prints things? Don't think I have used a printer for personal or work purposes in years.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

Sometimes it's nice to print out a drawing to scribble on.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I bought one to print anti-Trump propaganda to post by the mailboxes.

And because I'm a Millennial, I enjoy printing photos because I grew up having photo albums, and as such I'm used to making them. Plus if I don't print them I'll literally ever look at them.

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[-] [email protected] 20 points 13 hours ago

Who the hell can afford a printer

Anyone can afford the printer, it's the ink that's the problem

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 minutes ago

The cheap refills came with a free printer.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 12 hours ago

I just print at a local library

[-] [email protected] 18 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Just get a Brother laser printer. It uses a normal power chord same exact as any desktop PC, and uses toner, same exact as any real printer that's not a money farming piece of shit ink jet.

DISCLAIMER: I have not investigated Brother or other brands for enshittification in recent years, so YMMV.

My Brother lazer color printer has just been sitting here, pooping out pages and pages of what ever I want, sometimes sitting there off for months, year after year. Still haven't changed the toner.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Is that an AC/DC power chord?

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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
704 points (98.4% liked)

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